


Are we the boyfriend? (Or, Your love is a delicate flower)

by persuna



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: M/M, Pining, people figuring things out verrry slowwwly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-13 20:48:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18948373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persuna/pseuds/persuna
Summary: Tommy: I feel like, have you ever had a friend who breaks up with someone, who all your friends have known is horrible for like two or three years? And you get to them and you’re finally like, you have Stockholm syndrome, for real. I do worry that that’s us.Lovett: That’s us? Are we the boyfriend? Are we the– are, who–Tommy: We’re the person–Lovett: –who are we? Are we the person that needs–Tommy: –who’s been treated poorly.Lovett: Okay.Tommy: And it’s been over time, gotten worse and worse and worse.Lovett: We’re like Paul Ryan.Tommy: And here we are.Lovett: We’re like, Paul-Tommy: -we love youLovett: Get out! Paul, we’re your friends.-PSA, 01/04/2018





	Are we the boyfriend? (Or, Your love is a delicate flower)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you justlikesomuch for the betaing and general advice, it was invaluable. :D
> 
> I started this in January 2018 when I did not know who Ronan was (and when fandom still thought Tommy and Lovett lived alone together) so this is truly in no way intended to reference him. He is clearly well embedded in Lovett's circle and not an asshole!
> 
> Someone on tumblr noticed the pattern in these quotes, but I cannot for the life of me remember who. Really this is all their idea.

_Tommy: I feel like, have you ever had a friend who breaks up with someone, who all your friends have known is horrible for like two or three years? And you get to them and you’re finally like, you have Stockholm syndrome, for real. I do worry that that’s us._  
_Lovett: That’s us? Are we the boyfriend? Are we the– are, who–_  
_Tommy: We’re the person–_  
_Lovett: –who are we? Are we the person that needs–_  
_Tommy: –who’s been treated poorly._  
_Lovett: Okay._  
_Tommy: And it’s been over time, gotten worse and worse and worse._  
_Lovett: We’re like Paul Ryan._  
_Tommy: And here we are._  
_Lovett: We’re like, Paul-_  
_Tommy: -we love you_  
_Lovett: Get out! Paul, we’re your friends._  
_—PSA, 01/04/2018_

Tommy drifted down through the space between wakefulness and sleep. For once, his brain was being mostly peaceful. The sounds of Lovett getting back from his night out washed in and out of his awareness without him consciously examining them, except for a vague satisfaction that he was home safe.

Despite Lovett being, or maybe because he was, an arguably objectionable roommate with a suspiciously convenient moral stance against cleaning rotas, Lovett's rhythms, his assertive, unapologetic presence, had become familiar and homey almost immediately. There was barely any space for Tommy's occasional surges of intractable loneliness with him there. He couldn’t look at the hard-edged neatness of his apartment and feel like his dead, empty home, sitting mostly undisturbed and unused for weeks on end, was some kind of metaphor for his dead, empty heart and the lack of impact he had on the world. Not if it was full of Lovett. Even when he wasn't physically there, there were signs of him on practically every surface, in the squashed disarray of the couch and the pile of takeout boxes that were for some reason _next_ to the trash and not _in_ the trash. When he was actually there, there wasn't even room for the ever widening river of work related shit that streamed through every other waking hour. The moment Tommy came in to find Lovett on the couch, watching Frasier or playing video games or griping about the all-nighter he was going to have to start any second now, he was crowding it out, and Tommy was laughing and eating pizza and griping right back before he even realized it.

Tommy's sleepy brain, in that strange freeform state just before full dreaming, conjured up a vivid image of Lovett, wearing a blanket like an apron, meeting him at the door, 50s housewife style, and pouring a thick, syrupy liquid down his throat. It tasted of nothing, but made him feel warm and slow inside, dragging him deeper down towards true, tantalizing sleep. Down he went, closer and closer, until some discordant note in the sounds seeping through their shared wall snagged in his mind, and Tommy found himself surfacing abruptly: there was another man's voice coming from Lovett's room.

This was unusual, but not unprecedented. It didn't bother Tommy—that would be more than a bit hypocritical, even in his post-Katie slump—but he couldn't help but _notice_ things. He’d noticed that Lovett didn’t bring home a lot of company, which was crazy given how cute and funny he was and, judging by Lovett's bitching on the subject, a sign of terrible judgment on the part of every gay and bi man in DC. And he noticed it even more when he did. He'd noticed that it was harder to tell—not tell like he was _listening_ but tell like he couldn't help but absorb the information that the world presented to him and extrapolate it into likely scenarios—what was happening when it was two guys, two deep voices. Inevitably, that made him think about it, about what was happening in the other room, more than he ever had with previous roommates.

He'd noticed how Lovett was the morning after, a combination of bullish innuendo—part and parcel of Lovett's so far bottomless need to test Tommy's acceptance and push against his boundaries—and bashfulness, unexpected and endearing. On the rare occasions that Tommy was at home late enough in the morning, he'd be there when they left, and catch a glimpse of what kind of guy Lovett went for. Once, lain so low with flu that even the White House couldn't expect him to go in, he'd been lying unseen on the couch, with a clear view of the front door, and caught the whole goodbye. The sweet, pliable way Lovett wrapped his fingers around the guy's lapel, leaned into him so they were pressed together, went up on his toes to get close enough for a kiss. That was. That was notable. A thing he'd noticed about his friend.

The low rumble of conversation had transitioned into intermittent other sounds, and Tommy was officially completely awake. He made himself do the good, non-creepy roommate thing and reached for his headphones.

***

Thank fuck the next morning was a Saturday, and an actual day off instead of the weekday in Saturday clothes that he so often ended up with. Tommy managed to make it well past sunrise before his brain booted involuntarily and irrevocably, which was pretty good going for him. It also meant that he was about two hours past his usual first caffeine infusion, and his head was letting him know about it. He skipped his semi-routine Saturday morning run, stumbling into the kitchen to supervise the coffee machine's good work and then into the sitting room so he could enjoy the fruits of its labor in comfort.

Sipping his coffee slowly on the couch was a great way to start the day, significantly better than big, medicinal gulps on the Metro. Tommy started to feel very optimistic about the weekend in general. Maybe Lovett would want to get lunch?

Tommy was still on the couch when Lovett cracked his door open and peered out. He gave a little wave when he spotted Tommy and then retreated back into his room, door firmly shut. When he re-emerged a few minutes later, he went to the kitchen and called out, "Hey Tommy, can I ask you something?"

"Sure," Tommy called back.

"No," Lovett said, still from offstage, "I mean can I ask you something in here. About important kitchen business."

Reluctantly, Tommy heaved himself off the cushions and into the kitchen. "If this is about the oven, the one on the left is temperature, and the one on the right is a mysterious set of pictograms that don't seem to matter as long as you don't pick the one that looks like a grill."

“Yes, I’m familiar with the new-fangled technology you call ovens,” lied Lovett. He shut the kitchen door behind Tommy, which was weird. They never shut the kitchen door. The whole room looked strange and small and boxy.

Tommy looked at Lovett expectantly, but no important kitchen business was forthcoming. "You mentioned important kitchen business?"

"Yes. It's about my bagels," Lovett said, "I can't find them, I didn't eat them, and I'm concerned about me wasting away, and the detrimental effect that those carb bombs are going to have on your glutes. So we're having a Come to Jesus meeting about it right here, right now."

"Those bagels?" asked Tommy, pointing to the full pack that Lovett had left on the counter, for some reason underneath his cupboard and not in his cupboard.

"The very ones! See, I knew you'd hidden them somewhere."

"If that's all the business on the agenda, I've got a cup of coffee getting cold out there." Tommy put a hand on the kitchen door.

"No, wait-" From outside came the distinctive clunk of an unseen person opening and closing their front door. Naturally, given that the only other person who should be opening their front door was in the room with him, Tommy was alarmed. But when he looked over to share this alarm with Lovett, his expression was more akin to guilt. "Um, actually that's everything," Lovett finished.

“Do you know who that was?” Tommy asked.

There was a moment of slightly awkward silence, and then Lovett slumped back against the kitchen counter.

“Unfurrow your brow Thomas, it’s just this guy I met at Bullfeathers last night.” When Tommy didn’t reply, still confused by this whole encounter—had Lovett known the guy was leaving?—Lovett started to ramble, a sure-fire sign that he felt awkward. Or, admittedly, that he was in a good mood. But the tone of that kind of ramble was different. “He’s a congressional staffer, kind of a bore, but he had an amoral, Christian-Bale-in-American-Psycho kinda thing going on that I found sexy for reasons I don’t want to examine too closely.”

“Hang on.” The lingering morning fuzziness may have slowed him down, but Tommy was putting things together. He pointed accusatorily at the bagels and immediately felt ridiculous. But the question had to be asked. "Were they a diversion tactic?"

"A good diversion is harder than you think it will be."

"You don't have to divert me." Tommy felt stung. And also, caught. Like maybe Lovett had sensed him hearing things—passively hearing, not listening to them—and drawn the wrong conclusions.

"Don't fret Tommy. You've passed all your open-minded liberal tests with flying colors."

"Then what's with the secrecy?"

"He's not out.” Lovett shrugged, an attempt to affect disinterest that he immediately undermined by crossing his arms protectively across his chest. “And he didn't want anyone to see him here."

Tommy didn't want to be unsympathetic, he didn't know the guy's story and the world was still full of unenlightened morons, but Lovett sounded defensive about this asshole, as if someone else's personal issues reflected on him, and that Tommy didn't like. He managed, with some difficulty, to restrict himself to the comment, “that sounds like hard work."

"It's no big deal. DC is slim pickings, even for someone of my many and varied charms, and I'll probably never see him again. It's just some stupid hookup."

"Want to get lunch?" Tommy asked, because he didn't know what else to say.

***

"Right, I’m off." Lovett chugged the last few inches of his bland, embarrassing beer down in one go. “In my absence you have my permission to talk about sports, get it all out of your system.”

"But we just got here!" Favs looked truly wounded, even though he'd spent all day with Lovett at work, and Tommy had been locked in a series of windowless offices and SCIFs eighteen hours a day, every day this week until he couldn’t remember the last time he'd seen sunlight, let alone his roommate.

"What can I say? I'm very busy and important." Lovett started to slide out of their booth, but ran up against Favs, refusing to slide out first.

"So busy and important you've been dropping out of all drinks all month."

"I'm seeing someone," Lovett said, loftily. “We’re still in that first flush where we can’t keep our hands off each other, and I want to take full advantage of it.”

"So invite him here," said Favs, stubbornly.

"I'm not ready to expose him to you."

"Oh come on, we'll be good. It's been ages since we all hung out." Favs' eyes turned big and beseeching, a trick that Tommy would have bet good money wouldn't work on Lovett given that he himself pulled it to get out of opening heavy doors. Unexpectedly, Lovett softened and reached for his phone.

"I'll try him."

A few minutes later, Lovett's phone buzzed. He flipped it over and looked at it, face blank. "Sorry guys, gotta go." He stood on his seat and, displaying more core strength than Tommy would have given him credit for, vaulted over the back of the booth.

"But-" started Tommy. But Lovett was gone.

***

Getting home at one am was a depressing reality of Tommy's job. Certain papers couldn't be taken out of certain areas, and people only answered his calls after midnight if he made them from his special yellow phone. Lovett, by contrast, could (and frequently did) write all night in a t-shirt and boxers at their dining table. He was almost always in by the time Tommy went to bed, even if he wasn't asleep. So when he cracked the front door open after Tommy had settled down into bed for the third time in a week, Tommy poured his entire glass of water into the increasingly crispy looking plant that his sister had given him to 'bring some life' to his 'monastic cell', and stepped out into the hall, nearly running into Lovett just outside.

"Hey!" Tommy channeled his genuine surprise at their near collision into fake surprise at finding Lovett there. "What brings you back so late again?"

"Matters of great international import," said Lovett. "What brings you to this corridor so late at night?"

"Thirst." Tommy hefted his empty glass as evidence. "Aren't matters of great international import my thing?"

“Unnecessary burn on my very crucial role in our democracy. Aren't awkward late night roommate interventions my thing?"

If Lovett thought the low blow of referencing Tommy's poor self-care was going to make him less determined to get some answers, he was more desperate than Tommy thought.

"Do you need a roommate intervention?" he asked instead. Lovett remained silent. He was looking at the carpet, so Tommy could study his face as much as he wanted. He looked tired and sad, not how he should look at all. He was also chewing the inside of his lip like he wanted to say something. Tommy put a hand on his shoulder. "Jon?"

Lovett flicked his eyes up to look at Tommy, then flicked them back down again. "It's stupid."

So there was something wrong. Tommy clenched his hand around the empty glass in his hand, but kept his hand on Lovett's shoulder soft and relaxed, so as not to draw attention to it. "You can still tell me."

"I mean like, stupid personal stuff stupid." This time Tommy stayed quiet. Once he started talking, Lovett tended to keep going. Sure enough. "It's this guy I've been seeing. He doesn't want me to stay the night at his place, so I end up doing the walk of shame through DC, like a mid-price escort."

Lovett rolled his eyes and lifted the corner of his mouth at Tommy, like he was inviting him in on a joke. Tommy should probably tell Lovett he’d be a top-of-the-range escort, and let him go to bed. But it wasn’t funny. A slideshow of the glimpses he'd got of Lovett the morning after, prickly to hide that he was vulnerable, was flashing through his head. His laugh through their shared wall, delighted and delightful. The way he'd leaned into that one guy, who he hadn’t even been properly dating, like he still yearned for them to be curled up together, skin to skin. What kind of fucking idiot would kick _that_ Lovett out of bed and send him out into the cold night? "Are you dating a married senator?" he asked. That seemed to be the level of jeopardy that would warrant such a stupid response.

"No," scoffed Lovett, "he's not even important. But everyone in DC thinks deep down that they'll be president one day, and everyone I date pictures footage of me in a political ad, taking them down in a blaze of public humiliation."

Tommy didn't know what to say in response to shit like that. He wanted to tell Lovett that anyone sane would be proud to show him off wherever they went, but he knew if he did it would sound weird and Lovett would think he was blowing smoke. "Why don't you bring him here?" he asked instead, as practical and calm a response as he could manage.

Lovett rolled his eyes again, performative. "He doesn't want _anyone_ to see him. I told him you're no narc, but,” he waved a hand in the air as if he was describing a natural phenomenon, Que sera sera, and not a very preventable situation in which someone was being an asshole, forcing their… whatever they were calling each other, boyfriend or partner or fuckbuddy, out into the night while he was in a heightened state of vulnerability, so that he couldn't get a good night's sleep. Despite the fact that he had genuinely important work to do, crafting the words and narrative of the most powerful man in the world. It was reckless and mean and irresponsible and slightly familiar.

"Is this the 'important kitchen business' guy from like, three months ago?" Tommy's grip on Lovett tightened involuntarily, pulling him closer.

"Ugh, it's like living with albino Sherlock Holmes." Lovett shrugged Tommy's hand off. "You don't have to remember every single thing I say to use against me."

He turned and stomped off to his room.

***

_“But it is to say that if you sleep with someone who works in your industry, just be aware that you’re going to bump into that person at meetings and conferences and birthday parties for the rest of your life. I literally had to leave politics. We’re going to talk about it. Your love, your love is a delicate flower.”—Lovett’s Pitzer College commencement speech, 05/18/2013_

 

At any boring DC gathering Tommy had a solid strategy that had served him well whenever he deployed it: finding Lovett. Lovett had been miraculously more available of late, so Tommy didn't have catching up as an excuse, but as well as being reliably good company, Lovett had usually managed to collect Favs (if he wasn't on a date with a minor celebrity) and a plate of whatever food was being served. He also had an excellent line in running bits about various members of the DC set, and his impressions were so terrible that no one who wasn't already in the know could overhear, discern who they were meant to be, and get offended. If it wasn't in the spirit of these things to spend most of them with people you saw practically every day, Tommy refused to feel bad about it. The spirit of these things was inevitably sordid and self-serving.

Today, Tommy couldn't find Lovett anywhere. He found Favs, who confirmed that they'd come together after finishing up a speech, but after three turns round the set of rooms the event sprawled through, there was no sign of him. Even accounting for the camouflaging effects of shortness, it seemed like Lovett had left. Tommy was on the verge of giving up, hitting the bar, and resorting to mingling with strangers and acquaintances, like some kind of loser, when he remembered—because of course he'd been to several other dull fundraisers and campaign events in this bland hotel—that there was an adjoining suite of function rooms that did not seem to have been hired for this event, and that Lovett would not let that stop him going in there if he got bored of the party.

Hoping he didn't look as shifty as he felt, Tommy sidled up to a door to the suite. He was concentrating so hard on looking like he knew where he was going and it was his business to go there that he didn't actually look where was going, and backed right into someone.

"Watch it," they said in an unnecessarily combative tone.

"Sorry.” Tommy kept his voice mild but aggressively icy. It successfully drained the ire out the irritable, vaguely familiar man Tommy had bumped into, and he slunk away with a glare.

Since he'd already made a scene, Tommy gave up on subtlety and went straight for the door. It opened easily under his hand.

The lights were off inside, but there was someone there, slumped against the wall.

"Lovett?" Tommy asked the slight, familiar outline.

The person, who Tommy suddenly hoped wasn't Lovett, sniffed and rubbed at his face. "Hey," he said, not at all normally.

"What's wrong?" asked Tommy, because it was glaringly, horribly obvious that something was very wrong. He could hear that he sounded angry and demanding, which he fucking was, but hadn’t intended to express. If he'd been able to choose, Tommy would have wanted to approach Lovett with a sympathetic, gentle tone of voice. But he didn't have a choice, because Lovett was crying, and that made the question urgent.

"Nothing, god, calm down."

As Tommy got closer, and his eyes adjusted to the lack of electric lights, he could see that not only was Lovett's face blotchy and swollen, like he'd been crying for at least several horrific minutes, he was _rumpled_ , like some aspect of whatever was wrong had enough of a corporeal presence to have been here and laid its hands on him, rucked his shirt and made his hair even messier than usual. Tommy's heart, already escalating its activity uselessly at the thought of Lovett getting bad news from home or having an extra shitty day, pounded even harder, with intent.

"Is someone else here?"

"No.” Lovett almost sounded convincing, but he also had a history of being an unreliable source of information on similar topics, so Tommy made his own investigations. "Don't-" Lovett said, when Tommy reached for the handle of what he was pretty sure was a supply closet. "Ugh, you're the worst. Stop stomping around like there's an intruder in your family home, he's fucking gone, okay?"

"But there was someone here?"

"Yes, okay, you deduced it. There was someone here, and now they're gone, except they're never gone! We live a village-sized incestuous pool of emotionally adolescent narcissists from which there's no escape." Lovett's eye roll was not nearly as cocky as it was when he wasn't tear stained.

"Did he. What. Are you okay?" Tommy managed to say, after several false starts. He still felt slightly unhinged, adrenaline stampeding round his body with nowhere to go.

"I'm fine," insisted Lovett, sullenly. He held a defiant glare for a few seconds, but then his eyes filled with tears, which rather undermined his claim. Tommy stepped towards him involuntarily. He didn't know what he wanted to do, but he wanted to do something. Wipe the tears off Lovett's face more gently than Lovett would, or tuck his face into Tommy's chest where it would be safe, or whatever the hell people did to comfort their friends. "I _am_ ," Lovett repeated, scrubbing at his face with his sleeve and making it look worse. He waved his other hand in the air as if he could distract Tommy from what was going on. “I’m a pathetic crier, you know that about me. It doesn't mean anything."

Not having full control over your body's reactions was something that Tommy could sympathize with, particularly at this moment, where he wanted to do something normal like he would have done with anyone else—it wasn't like this was the first time that someone he knew had been upset for fuck's sake—but where instead he had regressed into an awkward teenager whose limbs all felt too long, at a loss as to how social interaction worked and at the whim of surges of misdirected anger.

 _It means something if you're upset_ , Tommy probably should have said. "Are we talking about the same cowardly fucking dickhead you've been seeing since last summer?" was what came out instead. Who was this fucking guy to send Lovett—who was definitely worth at least ten of him, minimum, he could say that confidently without even knowing who he was—into such a tailspin? And how fucking dare he? It seemed deeply unjust that he'd left before Tommy got there. His whole body felt ready for a confrontation with someone. A vague picture of the guy was coalescing in his mind: tall, but not as tall as Tommy. Probably good looking at first glance, but weaselly and slimy when you looked closer. Whatever the fuck a cruel mouth looked like, he probably had one of those, and Tommy wanted to punch him right in it.

"I'm not seeing anyone. We broke up last month, if you can call it breaking up when you've barely even been on a normal date."

"Then what are you doing in here with him that's so secret and upsetting? Did he hurt you?"

"No, he didn't hurt me, don't be ridiculous." The sniping seemed to have returned some of Lovett’s composure to him. He stopped rubbing at his eyes and started tucking his shirt back in. "I told you, it's impossible to avoid anyone in DC."

"Well, who is he then? I'll help you avoid him."

Lovett narrowed his eyes at Tommy, suspicious. "I'm not telling weird WASP caveman Tommy who he is. You look ready to go and slap his face with a glove or whatever it is your people do to pointlessly defend each other's honor."

"Would that be so bad?"

"It's not like that, okay? Not that he's not an asshole, but you know, it's not like I'm not a lot to deal with."

"You're not a lot to deal with.” Tommy’s outrage spiked again. Only people who enjoyed dealing with Lovett were allowed to complain about it. “Did he say that to you?" He took another step closer to Lovett, instinctive. He wanted to, to do something. Hold his shoulders, look into his eyes, make Lovett see that this was a big deal, make Lovett explain to him why Tommy felt so crazy over this.

“Don’t- I don’t need you to defend me,” snapped Lovett. He pushed both hands against Tommy's shoulder, firm enough that he took a step back. "I told you it's not like that."

Once again, he stormed off. It was getting to be a pattern.

***

When Lovett first announced that he was leaving DC, Tommy thought about that evening. Things had been a little bit awkward after their, would you call it a fight? Their conversation. Or more accurately, Tommy had felt awkward. Lovett had been so resolutely cheerful and normal from the very next morning that it swung all the way back around into not normal. And if he’d any desire to address it, which he didn’t, Lovett’s imminent departure had crushed it.

It was bad enough that he was leaving. It would have been even worse if Lovett had decided not to keep in touch with his ex-roommate who mishandled one conversation and then went all skittish on him forever, so Tommy had thrown himself wholeheartedly into being extremely normal: he rolled his eyes at Lovett's blatant fishing for goodbye compliments like he was meant to; he joined in on jokes about being bereft that they all really meant; he helped Lovett pack and pitched his complaints at the work and glee at the extra space at just the right level so that Lovett knew he didn't mean it; he attended every one of Lovett's endless going away events that didn't directly conflict with national emergencies; he drove him, his fuckton of suitcases and his one way ticket to LA to the airport and forced him into a hug that was only slightly longer than normal; he managed to get away for at least an hour or two when Lovett made one of his surprisingly regular trips back to DC; and most of all, he did not bring up That Evening once. After a while, he didn’t even think about it. If there was one thing that working at the NSC was good for, it was subsuming all your personal cares.

Until a year and a half later when, fresh out of the White House himself, that particular conversation thrust itself to the forefront of his mind again.

There Tommy was, at his desk, having more trouble than he’d had in years concentrating on his emails (no civilian motivation quite lived up to the words National Security right there in your job title) when his phone buzzed. It was Lovett, in the Whatsapp group that was just him, Tommy and Favs.

 _Apparently things are so slow in Tucson that a searingly insightful and hilarious commencement speech in California makes the local news?_ he’d written, above a link to an article about a commencement speech he’d given the month before.

Tommy smiled fondly down at his phone. He could picture with crystal clear accuracy the exact look of glee with which Lovett had sent that message and, when _Jon F is typing…_ appeared at the top of the group, his triumph at eliciting a flurry of responses.

 _Are you trying to humblebrag, because I don’t think you’re doing it right,_ Tommy sent.

 _Oh my god, we get it. You’re in the Atlantic, you’re in the Guardian, you’re in the NYT, somewhere out there Ariana Huffington is name dropping you right now,_ popped up from Favs.

 _I’m not in the NYT,_ Lovett replied. _Yet. We’ll see how much traction the Tucson Weekly piece gets._

Favs didn’t reply, but a change in their group name was announced by the alert _Jon F. changed the subject from “Beige and beiger” to “Relentless bragging”_ under Lovett’s message.

 _How many times per day would you say that you google yourself?_ Tommy asked, _$10 says it’s more than twice_.

 _Sucker’s bet,_ Favs replied.

_Zero. My assistant prints the articles out for me_

_You still have an assistant?_ Tommy sent. _Why?_

Whatsapp proclaimed that _Jon L. changed the subject from “Relentless bragging” to “Relentless bullying”_.

Laughing, Tommy tapped on the article and then, since he hadn’t actually watched it and his emails were not calling to him even a little, on the link to the speech, skipping forward through the introductions until Lovett got to the podium.

“Wait, I’m still shorter,” digital Lovett said, adjusting his mic down for the second time. Tommy curled one hand over his mouth and smiled into it.

It was a good speech. Lovett cracked and laughed at himself a few times, but those may have been Tommy’s favorite parts. He’d always had a bias towards Lovett laughing. But objectively, Lovett was _good_ at this, at sincerity leavened with humor and whimsy that distracted you from the turn into razor-sharp insight. Just as Tommy was relaxing into it—not that he’d thought the speech might be bad after the bits that he’d helped workshop and the multiple press citations that had floated across his inboxes after the fact, but as a person who’d never felt totally comfortable on a stage he worried—Lovett said, “but it is to say that if you sleep with someone who works in your industry,” and _that_ made him sit up.

“I literally had to leave politics,” continued Lovett, giving brand new context on his major career decisions to a crowd of strangers with no claim on information about his personal life. “We’re gonna talk about it”, he promised, in a shameless, blatant lie. Tommy knew it was a lie, because he listened to the rest of the video as intently as a top-level security briefing, twice, and not a _hint_ of another reference fell from Lovett’s lips.

Tommy drummed his fingers on his desk, oddly discontent. He _must_ have meant the same guy. He picked up his phone and flicked to his direct messages with Favs.

 _Did you watch Lovett’s speech?_ he asked. He stared at the screen for several long seconds until the three dots started pulsing with Favs’ reply. Pulsing. And pulsing.

_Annoyingly good  
Don’t tell him I said that_

_Yeah_. Was it weird to ask about the thing? It could be idle gossip. It was. He gossiped sometimes. _Who do you think he’s talking about?_

The dots took even longer to spit out a reply this time. _There is too much bullshit in politics for me to begin to answer that_.

Which was not what he’d been asking about at all. Tommy typed, _I mean the person he slept with and “had to leave politics” because of_ , considered the message for a second and then deleted the quote marks before sending it.

 _I don’t know._ Well that was no fucking help. _Wasn’t he seeing some asshole who’d never meet us from Carnahan’s staff? Or Ellsworth’s?_

Tommy tossed his phone down on his desk. It had to be him. Apparently not only the reason Lovett had been upset on multiple occasions, but the reason he’d left the city. Sure, Lovett had revealed some frustrations about his ex and DC socialising at that fundraiser that Tommy had assumed played into his decision to leave, and obviously, Lovett was sort of joking in his speech. But that that stupid shithead might have played a role, however minor, in Lovett leaving DC made Tommy seethe. At Lovett, for ceding ground to him, but mostly at whatever douchebag had driven him to that.

Tommy should be grateful that Lovett hadn't explained this aspect of him leaving at the time. If he hadn't sensibly stuck to his lines about following his dreams that no one could reasonably refute, Tommy would have made him tell him who Kitchen Emergency Asshole was, he would have found whatever rock he was hiding under and he would have kicked him in his no doubt smug face, scandal be damned. He still kind of wanted to, thinking back to his last year in the White House. It was far from the only factor, but there had been a definite correlation between the increase in stress and decrease in Lovett that had characterized the last stretch of his tenure.

This whole reaction was stupid, because not only was Lovett leaving the White House ancient history, Tommy had left the White House, and he hadn't fallen out of touch with Lovett. They were still friends and Lovett was fine and Tommy should get over the random breakup that his friend had in the past.

He just really fucking hated that guy.

***

 _Nancy Pelosi: Did you ever have a friend who was dating a jerk?_  
_Tommy: Yeah, oh yeah. Most of them._  
_Nancy Pelosi: And you couldn’t tell them that they were dating a jerk–_  
_Tommy: Yeah!_  
_Nancy Pelosi: -you just had to show ‘em somewhere along the way, you know, someone who wasn’t a jerk wouldn’t act this way. Well, I think that some people just, bless their hearts and with all due respect for their concerns and how they see their interests, and I respect that, they still want to give him a chance. And so it’s not about him, it’s about them._  
_—PSA, 2017/06/22_

Living in San Francisco was oddly transformative, in ways that made Tommy feel both less and more significant. He was well aware that, if America was a boat, his hand had never been in control of the tiller. But he had sometimes had a fingertip or two touching it. Not enough to have real traction. Not enough to change the boat's course. But enough to feel its direction shifting before it happened, to push it in concert with others. Nowadays, he wasn't even on the boat. He had a radio that got him crackly updates, and sometimes he got to shout some advice at it, but no one was officially listening to him.

In many ways, he was diminished: less informed, less powerful, less impressive, no longer any size of cog in the machinery of the world's most powerful political entity. In other ways, he'd never been more important. He wasn't answerable for the security of the nation and the reputation of the President, he was answerable to himself. All he had to ask himself before he did something was: will this make me happy?

In other words, he'd been thinking, as he realized he barely ever had in his adult life, about what made him happy. For a long time it was the freedom to tweet cutting comments at people he'd been wishing would fuck off for years, to wake up before sunrise because he loved running in the dawn light, not because he had two meetings before 9:00 am, to hook up with guys that caught his eye instead of skipping over them until he found a girl that did. None of that was a surprise. Those were the simple fantasies that he'd lain awake not thinking about for a couple of years.

It was a surprise how eagerly he still swiped to a message from Lovett when it popped up on his phone. How often Lovett's reaction was the first he anticipated when he got a big piece of news or, hell, saw an especially goofy looking sea lion. That he was comparing the guys that caught his eye to Lovett's compact body and exhilarating energy, and that they were all falling short.

Of course he'd known that Lovett was a good friend, and that he'd been a great roommate, for Tommy at least, if not objectively. But he wasn't just a bright dash of color in the drab, gray grind of DC; he was a highlight of a life carefully curated to Tommy's whims. Even though he wasn't in the same city. Even amongst the myriad of excellent people that Tommy had managed to hold on to from politics. When Tommy thought, 'what will make me happy?’ Lovett was who he kept circling back to.

It cast a lot of his previously inexplicable reactions in a new light. It was possible that he'd been rather oblivious.

Which was to say, when Lovett came to visit him in San Francisco—or came to crash on his couch for a couple of nights while he visited San Francisco for his own vague reasons, it wasn't entirely clear—Tommy had some nebulous ideas of his own. If ever there was a time, it seemed like it was now. He was single, Lovett was single, and their direct WhatsApp thread had been lighting up practically hourly for weeks. New city, new dynamic, new opportunities. If it could happen, it could happen now.

Even though Lovett was perfectly capable of making his own way, Tommy met him at the airport, eager to see him in person again.

"This is weird.” Lovett was bemused enough to submit to Tommy's quick but tight hello-hug without any squirming at all. "Is post-White House Tommy also considerate enough to carry his guest's luggage?”

Honestly, Tommy wanted to. He wanted to carry Lovett's books to his next class and pull Lovett's chair out for him and maybe offer him his jacket if it got cold. But it was fifty-fifty if he would take that sort of thing as his due or grow suspicious enough to perceive that Tommy was under the thrall of what Lovett termed ‘centuries of gender nonsense’, so instead he stuck his hands in his pockets and snorted dismissively.

"I should have known the change was only surface deep." Lovett's eyes dropped to Tommy's arms. "Though it's extra deceptive when your surface looks like that." He reached out and squeezed Tommy's bicep. "What the fuck else are these for?"

A hot, pleased flush prickled up Tommy's neck. Despite how conspicuous it felt, Lovett didn't seem to notice, and the extended riff that he launched into about people wasting hours of their time lifting heavy things only to refuse to put their skills into practice when the opportunity arose was funny enough to provide ample cover for any visible blushing.

The memory of Lovett could never quite retain the vibrancy of the actual Lovett, but Tommy was enjoying the recalibration process. By the time they got back to his tiny postage stamp of an apartment, he'd already laughed more than he had in the last week. His maybe-I-coulds were consolidating into much firmer, very near future yes-I-cans, and it seemed like Lovett might be on the same page. He was happy to see Tommy. He was trying hard to make him laugh. He was admiring of Tommy's arms. Maybe this could be easy?

"Want to get dinner tonight?" he asked when Lovett had dropped his bag by the front door and commandeered the full length of the couch. Or, as he now insisted it was, his bed till Sunday and not a place for Tommy to sit when he had a whole apartment of furniture to make free with. He felt calm, despite the significance that the question might end up having.

Tommy’s recalibration process must have been lagging, because instead of catching the import of this question, instead of looking up and reading a new openness is Tommy's face and answering in the affirmative with a smile and a wealth of silent understanding of the new chapter they'd both moved on to, he kept his eyes closed and said, "I can't, I've got a date".

All of Tommy's ease and sense of a steadily brightening future evaporated in an instant. "You don't even live here," he managed to say in something approaching a normal tone, “how can you possibly have a date already?" Was he on Tinder in the car? Loading up Grindr while standing in line at airport security? How the fuck could Tommy have missed his window?

"I'm not meeting him for the first time, he's an old friend," Lovett said. He added, "you don't know him," before Tommy could even formulate the question.

"A friend you're dating?" Tommy's voice didn't rise into shouting territory, it cracked tellingly instead, but seriously, what the fuck?

"I guess friend is the wrong word," Lovett said, thoughtfully, "but let's wait to see how tonight goes before we define the relationship."

“So you’re here for a date and I’m, what, cheaper than Airbnb? Your back up plan if the mood isn’t right to stay over at his?” Tommy couldn't storm off without seeming like an actual psychopath, and San Francisco’s housing market did not allow him enough space to do so effectively anyway. He had to settle for stalking pointedly to the kitchen side of the room and opening the fridge. He stood looking into it for a few moments, using the cool air and privacy to get his face in order. When he turned back around, nothing in hand—his fridge was sadly devoid of magic wishes—Lovett's head had appeared over the back of the couch, and he looked contrite.

"I’m absolutely mostly here to visit my good friend Tommy, the date is a bonus. Since I was already coming to see you.”

“I might have made plans for us tonight.” Tommy wasn’t quite ready to ease up. Even apart from the rudeness, ‘good friend’ stung too much.

“It’s not fair to hold it against me that I have to fly to another city for a chance to get laid, not when you look like that,” Lovett said, cajolingly. He eyed Tommy up and down in a way that made him uncurl a little, almost against his will. “It’ll be a couple of hours, we can meet for drinks afterward, and tomorrow I'm all yours.”

Which is how Tommy ended up moodily downing a beer on an empty stomach, waiting to _meet_ Lovett's date, when he wanted to _be_ Lovett's date.

He could do this. He wasn’t creepy. If Lovett was seeing someone, then he was seeing someone. It was bad timing, that was all. The whole dalliance could all be over in a few weeks. Or it might not even totally rule Tommy out. Lovett and this yahoo might not be exclusive. He hadn’t really been envisioning some casual thing where they still dated other people, but it might be worth it. Lovett would be worth it.

God, if he was even interested. That was still an open question. Even as Tommy's chances of success dwindled, the stakes of failure remained as high as ever. Lovett was one of his best friends. Lovett was also one of his most prickly friends. He lived across the state. Their hobbies barely overlapped. If he thought it was weird that Tommy felt this way then he could so easily just... float away.

Whatever happened, it didn't change the fact that neither Lovett nor his date had done anything wrong, and Tommy had to get through tonight with a minimum amount of dickishness. Externally at least. Internally, Tommy was going to give himself a bit more leeway. He was a mere petty mortal.

Tommy stared down at the bar. It seemed like the only place that his glare could be safely directed. His glass was empty. It was even odds if being two beers down would help or hurt, but nonetheless, Tommy ordered a second.

When Lovett appeared, a mere five minutes late, which was the height of his personal punctuality, Tommy had only managed the first third of his drink and was disappointingly sober. He forced himself to smile and wave them over. From a distance, the date seemed fine. If anything, he was disappointingly anodyne, with no obvious physical flaws for Tommy to feel smug about, or positive attributes for him to resent. It was a face so ubiquitous that it had a whiff of familiarity. A bland nothing of a face. Okay, maybe Tommy was still managing a certain level of resentment.

Tommy kept the smile up as they approached, and held a hand out in greeting. “Hi,” he said, “I’m Tommy.”

“Michael.” Michael shook Tommy’s hand slightly more firmly than was necessary, like he knew he was inadequate and had something to prove.

"What do you guys want to drink?"

"I'll have an Anchor IPA," replied Michael. Tommy glanced at Lovett, expecting at least an eye roll in response. He rarely missed an opportunity to air his opinion on what he considered to be unnecessary food related pretension, which included any beer fancier than Budweiser. Tommy's ribs still hurt at the memory of his rant about The Mill's $4 toast last year.

"The same.” Lovett did not make eye contact.

Nonetheless, Tommy raised an eyebrow at him. "It's very hoppy."

"You know me. I like my beer lively."

Once they all had drinks the introductory small talk began, in one direction at least. Michael turned out to be a political consultant specializing in messaging and strategy. Being in the business himself, Tommy wasn’t exactly in a position to sneer at post-politics consulting, but Fenway was different. That was the point of it. To strike a fresh path away from the masturbatory DC bullshit that, on first impression at least, it seemed like this guy lived off. And was happy to talk about all day.

Tommy kept his face fixed in polite interest as Michael droned on, but after a while he did himself the favor of letting the actual content wash over him. The whole thing was baffling, and it only grew more so with every banal, self-aggrandizing second of Michael’s monologue, and every attempt to catch Lovett’s eye in commiseration that failed. What was Lovett—brilliant, funny, cute Lovett, who never settled for anything—doing on a date with this guy? If Lovett's type was pompous consultants, he could have had his pick of them in DC.

As Michael talked, the sense of familiarity that Tommy had felt was growing stronger. There was something about him, and it was more than that he had one of those faces, or that Tommy had talked to hundreds of blowhards exactly like him. Another day, Tommy might not have given it a second thought, or would have assumed they'd had some forgettable encounter in the claustrophobic world of DC politics. Today, Lovett was leaning on the bar with a soft look on his face, the kind of look that Tommy had been hoping he could put there, but instead was for this fucking guy. That look was churning up a feeling familiar from DC, and even more caustic now that Tommy actually recognized it for what it was: a mix of worry and resentment and longing.

With his insides halfway back to that time already, it hit him, a lightning bolt of recognition. He and Michael _had_ had a forgettable encounter at an event in DC, right outside the room where Lovett had had such a horrible encounter with his ex-something that he had literally fled the state. Now here he was, on a date with Lovett. It couldn't be a coincidence.

"Are you okay?" Lovett asked.

Tommy relaxed his face from its apparently discernible rictus of outrage and set his drink down deliberately on the bar. "Excuse me," he said and retreated.

In the relative solitude of the men's room, Tommy tried very hard to pull himself together, or at least to summon some vestige of the unflappable NSC mask he had once lived behind. The trouble was, Lovett had always been good at worming his way behind that mask.

He knew he was probably overreacting but, seriously, _this_ was _him_? _This_ was the guy who had made Lovett miserable for months, and driven him away for years? _This_ was the phantom whose grisly comeuppance Tommy had idly fantasized about for nearly a decade? Tommy had expected something more. A charming, handsome psychopath bent on wreaking social havoc. Or at the very least two out of those three things. Not some mediocre DC staffer he had barely noticed because he was dull and shitty and didn't deserve to talk to Lovett, let alone reject him.

This line of thought was not helping Tommy calm down. His face in the mirror was still red and slightly sweaty. He looked like he’d just staggered away from a car accident. He felt like it.

The door banged open to admit two loud, slightly drunk tourists, startling Tommy out of his reverie. Before they could sense that Tommy was anything other than a normal person doing the things you were meant to do in a bathroom, Tommy turned the tap on. He had to at least pretend he wasn’t some big creepy weirdo having an emotional breakdown over his friend's on-again ex.

***

The rest of the drinks passed in a blur. Tommy was pretty sure that Lovett thought he was ill, which served as a good enough cover for his flushed face and terse conversation that he started to think he'd gotten away with it. As if his luck was that good. They'd almost made it home safely when Lovett asked, "So?”

"So what?" Tommy fumbled for his keys.

"What did you think of Michael? Hit me with it."

For a brief few moments, Tommy found respite in feigning close concentration on opening his building's front door. Unfortunately, this was an undeniably simple task that he soon completed, and Lovett was still looking at him expectantly when he was done. "He seemed... fine." Tommy turned away from Lovett and started up the stairs, two at a time. It was an efficient way to climb stairs, he wasn't running away.

After a moment, Tommy heard Lovett's footsteps behind him, moving fast to keep up. "You didn't exactly give him much to work with," he called at Tommy's back. "He was so freaked out I had to tell him you ate a bad burrito."

They reached Tommy's floor. Tommy wasn't sure if Lovett was pissed by his answer or the speed of their climb, but he definitely did look pissed. And like he still expected some kind of judgment from Tommy. "Thanks?" Tommy tried, and Lovett's expression darkened. It wasn't a real answer, but all the things Tommy wanted to say would only make things worse. He opened his apartment door and gestured for Lovett to step through it.

"Why are you being so weird?" Lovett asked as Tommy closed his door behind them both.

 _I think I'm coming down with something. He seemed nice._ Even, _okay, but you could do better_. There were so many reasonable responses Tommy could have given. Instead, "So this is Kitchen Emergency guy, right?" burst out of his mouth.

"Kitchen emergency guy?" He said it like he’d never even heard the phrase before.

"You know.” Tommy felt the tide of bitterness he'd built up breaching its barrier, gave in to it. “The mystery man you dated in DC whose identity was so secret that no one was allowed to lay eyes upon him, who'd never meet any of your friends, who wouldn't even let you sleep over, who you ‘literally had to leave politics’ because of.” And Tommy was shouting. Why was he shouting?

Lovett didn't look confused anymore. His expression had gone flat and blank. "Wow. That's quite a story you've been writing yourself. I thought laughable fiction was my job."

"It's him though, isn't it?"

"It's hard to say from that skewed version of the facts." An amateur attempt at evasion. Did Lovett think he could get out of this with that weak bullshit? Tommy had reams more ammunition, a stockpile years deep.

"Because I thought I recognized him from that time he made you cry in the middle of a fundraiser."

That made Lovett flinch.

"Why are you- Why do you even remember this shit?"

Tommy pressed his advantage. "Has he apologized for all that? Is it different this time?"

"You've met him haven't you?" asserted Lovett, but he soon wavered. "That's different," he said, uncertainly.

"Have you met his friends?"

Lovett looked away and didn't reply.

"Are you his boyfriend?" Tommy sneered.

"We're not in high school," Lovett mumbled, mostly to the carpet, "we don't have to label things."

"So that's a no."

There was a heavy pause. Tommy let this one hang there, waiting for Lovett to acknowledge Tommy was right. He was pretty sure that that was what he wanted here. But when Lovett did look back up at Tommy, he didn't look defeated. "What the fuck are you doing?" He took a step towards Tommy, and instinctively Tommy took a step back. "What the fuck is this?"

It was a question Tommy couldn’t answer. What _was_ he doing? Lovett's eyes were blazing with anger and shiny with tears, because Lovett cried when he was angry and got angry when he was upset, and Tommy didn't know what he was doing. Making Lovett cry, apparently. Like the asshole he was... what, defending Lovett from?

Tommy shook his head. "I don’t know," he choked out. "Sorry. Just. Forget it." Then, like a coward, he turned tail and ran into his bedroom. Lovett didn't follow him.

So that went more badly than Tommy could possibly have imagined.

***

Tommy woke to a truly fetid taste in his mouth. For the first time in his adult life, he had gone to sleep without brushing his teeth, which was fitting since he was apparently a disgusting, petulant child. He had lain awake long enough, in an agony of shame and self-recrimination and the increasingly unpleasant urge to piss, that he’d slept late, and it was past nine when he eventually screwed up the courage to emerge from his room.

It wasn't accurate to say there was no trace of Lovett. His stuff was still spread over a remarkable percentage of Tommy's surfaces given the brief time he'd spent there, but Lovett himself was gone.

Tommy spent all morning in his apartment, halfheartedly writing and deleting work emails, stupid and jumpy with worry. Lovett did not come back.

At one o'clock, Tommy picked up his phone. A simple, sincere apology was always a good place to start. _I'm so sorry about last night,_ he sent before he could overthink it. An image of Lovett's hurt face looking up at him flashed up in his mind, and his message immediately looked inadequate. Fourteen hours or so of worrying had given Tommy a lot more to say, but a stream of needy text messages was probably not going to help him look more balanced or make Lovett feel better about Tommy yelling at him.

 _I am fully willing to give a more groveling apology, but also to never mention it again if that would be less annoying_ , he sent. Two wasn't a stream. Tommy forced himself to set his phone down and took two steps back from it to sit on the couch. It was harder to stop staring at it.

Ten minutes later, Tommy had lost track of how many better messages he'd come up with. He should at least have mentioned at the end of that message how Lovett could indicate what his preference was, so he didn't have to agonize over his reply. Something like: thumbs up for all is forgiven, thumbs down for please grovel, and a middle finger for fuck you forever I never want to speak to you again. Like a Roman emperor passing judgment on a disgraced gladiator. He stood up to get his phone, and then sat back down again. It was too late for amendments. Three might be a stream.

Five minutes later Tommy's phone vibrated, and he sprung up so fast he nearly fell over. But it was only the Postmates person with his lunch.

There was no reply from Lovett all day.

***

On Sunday morning, Tommy's alarm went off at six. Lovett's flight was today, and unless he'd managed some silent night-time raid—which would have been an unprecedented act of stealth and subtlety on Lovett's part, given that Tommy had left his bedroom door open to guard against just that possibility and slept fitfully purely by lucky coincidence—his stuff was still here, so he _had_ to come back. Tommy showered with the bathroom door open and then settled down at his desk to be even less productive than yesterday. Even Tommy wouldn't have set off for the airport until at least nine am. Lovett would probably push it till ten, ten fifteen.

At ten twenty, Tommy started packing Lovett's bag for him. Lovett was cutting it fine if he wanted to get to the airport with enough time for the security line. He must have been dreading coming here, putting it off until he had an excuse to dash in and out as quickly as possible. The decent thing to do was enable that if that was what Lovett wanted. Tommy didn't want him to miss his flight.

At ten forty-five, Tommy could no longer suppress the thought that he'd been so horrible that Lovett was willing to abandon a portion of his worldly possessions in order to avoid facing him again. On the one hand, Lovett boasted regularly about how little he paid per pair of pants, so it might not be a total death knell for their friendship. On the other hand, this particular shade of maroon was quite hard to find. Tommy tucked a ball of socks that had rolled halfway across the room into Lovett's bag and contemplated writing a note of apology and sticking it in there too.

At ten fifty, a key slid into Tommy's lock, and Lovett opened the door. Tommy sprang to his feet, grabbed Lovett's bag, and found he had no idea what to say.

"Hey," Lovett shifted from foot to foot, a little shuffle of awkwardness, but when he spoke, he was clearly trying to sound normal. "Sorry I haven't been around that much this weekend. We'll have to catch up properly next time you're in LA."

Okay. So that was how Lovett wanted to play it. Like nothing happened. In many ways, it was the best case scenario. So why did Tommy feel so disappointed?

"Don't worry about it. I caught up on some work, it was good," lied Tommy.

"Great. Win win." For a moment they stood, staring at each other. Tommy's stomach wanted to crawl out of his body. It's not like it was always easy with Lovett, they were both in their own ways quite awkward people, but it wasn't usually like this. "My flight is leaving soon, so," Lovett gestured at his bag, still clenched in Tommy's hand.

"Right." Tommy started to lift his arm to hand Lovett his bag. It seemed to move in slow motion. He didn't want to leave it this way, Tommy having fucked it all up so badly. He hadn't even fucked it up by saying the things he wanted to say! It had all been completely needless. Lovett probably thought that Tommy had spontaneously transmogrified into an asshole. He pulled the bag back. Lovett looked wary. Perhaps he could use the poetry of Lovett's own words against him?

"Lovett, your love is a delicate flower."

"What?" Lovett looked understandably confused. He probably hadn't been back-burner obsessing over a throwaway line from a speech he made in 2013. Don't try to be clever, doofus. Say what you _mean._

"Just don’t do this again, please don’t date this guy."

"Don't tell me who to date," snapped Lovett.

"I'm not!" Tommy said, reflexively. Wow, he was so bad at this. He swallowed. Took a deep breath. "Okay I am, I'm sorry. But. I'm not saying you have to date me”—Lovett's whole body jerked; Tommy forged on—“but don't date that asshole. You’re so much better than that. He didn't deserve you in DC and he definitely doesn't deserve you now." Tommy held Lovett's bag out to him, and he took it, looking lightly stunned. "That's what I should have said yesterday, and instead I shouted at you, which again, I am sorry for.”

After a moment, Lovett turned and left.

***

"You enjoyed being on the pod, right?" Favs asked. They were the only two people left on a Fenway Strategies conference call, which tended to be the only enjoyable period of a Fenway Strategies conference call. They hadn't discussed it explicitly, but Tommy was pretty sure that Favs shared his growing lack of patience for the repetition and artifice of political consulting work.

"Yeah, of course."

"How do you feel about making it a more regular thing?"

"Like a regular guest thing? Sure, I'd be up for that."

"More like a co-host thing. There's enough news and enough listeners that Bill wants to add an early week show, but unfortunately Dan has a real job, so you're my joint second choice."

Tommy was smiling, fully ready to formalize the conversations that he and Favs were already having into a show if people were willing to listen, when his mind stuck on 'joint'. "Joint?"

"Lovett is already in."

Tommy's smile faded. It wasn't like he and Lovett weren't talking. They were in the same text chains and friendship circles and were officially very much still friends. But it was like Lovett had stopped sending him the first drafts of his responses to obnoxious tweets at three am. It was like every time Tommy went to initiate contact, a hot ball of shame and embarrassment ignited in his stomach and vaporized the impulse before he could act on it. "Have you er, told him who he'd be sharing the limelight with?"

"He wants his name above yours on the billboards, but I'd already factored that in." Favs’ voice turned tentative. "He was also insistent that I make sure you knew he'd be involved before you agreed to anything. Is everything alright with you guys?"

If Tommy had had any idea where to start answering that question, he might have done it, but it was too much of a humiliating mess. "Of course it is," he said instead, "Lovett will be really good, and the two of us almost add up to Dan. It's a great idea."

By the time he hung up, Tommy had talked himself into really believing that. This might be just the thing they needed to dissipate the residual awkwardness between them. An enforced weekly conversation with a shared enemy, structured topics, and a calming, mutually respected mediator. Like couples therapy, except they were going to talk about how epically Republicans had fucked up instead of their feelings, which was much safer and more productive ground.

***

Incredibly, Tommy's self-justifications turned out to be mostly right. Scheduling a time for them to talk that neither of them could chicken out of at the last minute and officially inaugurating some conversational crutches—politics, their old standby, and messages from their sponsors, a curveball but Tommy would take it—worked wonders.

Their old ease did not completely return. It was hard reading the mood from San Francisco, and even harder reading the mood when he visited. Lovett on the pod was determinedly flippant and flirtatious, which was good entertainment, but left Tommy feeling constantly like he'd missed a step. He didn't know how to react when he caught Lovett looking at him and instead of looking away like a normal person, Lovett doubled down into full staring and said Tommy was handsome. Even if he had any idea how to flirt back, if it even _was_ flirting and not mockery, was he allowed to? Was it a test to see if Tommy could be trusted, or if he was going to come over all weird again? Most of the time he either got red and quiet, which Lovett seemed gratified and disappointed by in equal measure, or red and impatient, which was even more unpredictable. If he'd thought it over in advance, he would have thought that taking Lovett's phone from him in the middle of a live stream would be the kind of overbearing, controlling behavior that he should avoid, but Lovett almost seemed to like it.

Still, it was better. So much better. Tommy could laugh appreciatively at Lovett's jokes, and debate politics with him without worrying it would turn nasty, and talk to him for several hours every week. It was too precious, delicate a balance for Tommy to dare risk unbalancing it with anything as trivial as his feelings.

***

 _Lovett: -like dating someone if you weren’t dating them, you’d make fun of them with your friends. That you’re sitting across the table from this person and they say something asinine or annoying or ridiculous and you think to yourself, ‘if I wasn’t with this person, this is the kind of person I’d fucking hate’._  
_Guest: That is some interesting- you’ve had some toxic relationships. Maybe you break up with that person? I’m not a therapist but…_  
_Lovett: It did not last._  
_—Lovett Or Leave It, 2017/09/23_

After forty minutes on the tarmac Tommy’s knee was jiggling up and down like he was Favs on a plane. Tommy was on a plane, so that part of the analogy held up, but he was more worried about being late than about falling out the sky. There was nothing like rudeness to take the shine off a romantic gesture. If that's what this was. He'd left himself a lot of plausible, platonic deniability, which was in line with his general level of bravery the past few months.

At first, after Trump had won the election, things were too dark, and moved too fast for Tommy to focus on... anything, really. In a national emergency you put your petty personal concerns aside and set your shoulder to the wheel however and wherever you could, all hands on deck to try and pull their country out of its catastrophic tailspin. When Tommy looked up, when it settled in that this was a slow-burning emergency that their lives would have to be lived through rather than a short-term crisis that life could be entirely suspended for, he'd not only founded a company with Favs and Lovett, he'd pretty much agreed to move to LA.

Tommy didn't regret committing to Crooked Media. It was a little hard to explain to some of his friends and relatives that podcasts had the potential to be equally important as more direct involvement in politics, but he believed it. There was just this one, small thing that gave him pause. Okay, this vast, looming black hole of a thing that hung over every other thought: things still weren’t right with Lovett. And now that they co-ran a business it had ballooned from a personal deprivation for Tommy to a professional liability for him and several people he cared about. It felt a little bit like he'd sold his friends a house whose foundations he knew were cracked. Favs especially, but also the ever expanding group of people they were recruiting to work with them. Before they all moved into the metaphorical Crooked Media house, before Tommy moved into an actual house in LA, it seemed like he and Lovett should probably talk about it.

He’d been telling himself this since November. At first, he'd avoided the issue, putting off the moving rather than setting about the fixing. Based on his somewhat testy tone when they discussed it—which was daily, like the inconveniences of being in a different city from the rest of your full-time job—even Favs' boundless patience had been tested by Tommy's delaying tactics. _Favs_. And he was the subtle one. Emily had taken to sending him pointed photographs of what he was missing out on: the made-up spare bed in their house, a sad-eyed shot of Leo sitting said spare bed, Favs and Lovett and Tanya with the work he should have been a part of spread out over their dining table, Tommy’s shampoo neatly lined up in the guest bathroom. Though he only had himself to blame for that last one. Getting toiletries shipped to their house was a rookie error.

Between the emotional blackmail and the irritating reality of remote working, Tommy had at least been forced to set a moving date. He'd booked his transport one way and a moving company for a month from now, and last Friday, before heading to the second ever episode of 'Lovett or Leave It', he'd signed a disconcertingly expensive rental agreement.

In other words, the clock was ticking. Yet he still hadn’t talked to Lovett about anything other than Republicans, the least romantic topic that existed.

Part of it was that, as clear as Jon and Emily had made their wishes, Lovett had been uncharacteristically restrained. Did he not _want_ Tommy to move to LA? Was that because he was in on the tension Tommy felt between them? It would be reasonable not want to hang out now that he knew Tommy hated his boyfriend and might randomly make him cry. Somehow, it was never the right time to ask. They always had a set list of topics to discuss and at least one third party there. The pod, which had once been a vital crutch, had begun to feel more like a handicap.

When Lovett had asked Tommy to be on the second episode of his new podcast, he'd told himself not to take it as a sign. Based on their Twitter mentions, a certain proportion of their listeners seriously thought that Tommy didn't even _like_ Lovett, which said something about how much doing a podcast together didn't stand in for real social interaction. But still, he'd asked Tommy. That had to count for something. Even if it was mainly to fill an empty slot, he could have had Favs back on. He was across the road and a pushover. Even if it was just the comfort of having another member of the regular pod team with him in this new venture, that meant he found Tommy comforting. And it had gone well! They'd had dinner together beforehand, and it had only been a little stilted. On stage, Lovett hadn’t hugged him, but he had introduced him as " _my_ co-host" in a possessive tone that sent a bolt right through Tommy's stomach. Flirting with him and Favs was part of his shtick, but it hadn't felt entirely like a joke.

It also hadn't felt like it was entirely a joke, despite it literally being one, when Lovett had said, in front of all those people, that he trusted him. And that he was a boatshoe. Setting the shoe bit aside, the trust part? That had felt good. There were few things Tommy wanted more in the world than to be sure that Lovett trusted and liked him again. If he hadn't been laughing so hard, if he hadn't wanted to let Lovett shine in this moment, if they hadn't been on stage, he might have let the warm glow of the moment carry him further. But he was and he did and they were, so instead he'd scrubbed the tears of laughter away and carried on with the bit. By the time the show ended it all seemed, once again, so tenuous, and Tommy had left Lovett with his admirers and retreated to Jon and Emily's.

It wasn't until this morning that he'd got the video of the game, attached with a few other clips to an email from Tanya titled 'Social media content??’.

Tommy had watched it again, through eyes that weren't blurry with heightened on-stage emotions. There was something there, there _was_. In Lovett's face. In the crinkles at the corner of his eyes. In the way he leaned forward to catch Tommy’s eye before he spoke. He was playing to the audience, but he was also making a connection with Tommy.

Perhaps he'd let an opportunity slip away last week. But today could be another one. It was Friday, Lovett was going on stage in a few hours, and it was as close to a chance at a redo as he was going to get.

As the plane finally started taxiing up the runway and knee bounced harder than ever, Tommy told himself this again. It was harder, now he really was flying to LA on a whim. Fuck, he should have downloaded the video to his phone before he entered the treacherous world of Gogo inflight wifi.

***

Despite the delays, Tommy made it to LA and the Improv in plenty of time. Early enough that he had to lurk in a restaurant across the road, hoping Lovett made a different dinner choice from last week, until he could slip surreptitiously into the show. Uncharacteristically, Tommy didn’t have a plan, but he thought it was probably bad etiquette to distract Lovett before he went on stage.

When Lovett saw him in the audience, he lit up, which seemed positive. Miraculously, he didn't mention Tommy's presence out loud to the audience, but he kept looking over, and as soon as the show was over he gestured unmistakably for him to come to stand by the side of the stage. Feeling as tingly as a groupie who'd caught the eye of the lead singer of their favorite band, Tommy sidled over to wait.

It took a while for Lovett to satiate his hordes of adoring fans, but the time passed quickly. For all he joked about his social ineptitude, Lovett was in his element here, somehow made to hold court sitting on the edge of a stage, and Tommy was in the state of mind to enjoy watching him. At first, Lovett kept glancing over at Tommy, as if he wanted to check he was still there, but whatever dopey expression he saw on Tommy's face must have reassured him. He spent long enough talking to the people clustered around him that none of them looked shortchanged when he extricated himself and finally, Tommy was up.

Lovett steered him backstage and into the dressing room. “Three shows in a row!” he beamed, still giddy with performance adrenaline, “Tommy, you spoil me." God, Tommy wanted to. "Are you here for house stuff?"

It was an easy out. Between starting an LA based business and moving to LA, Tommy was legitimately here all the time. But that wasn't the point of this. "No." He didn't try to play it safe. Tried to make it sound as serious as it felt. “I’m just here for you."

He was rewarded with a smile, the small real one that Lovett always ducked his face to hide. Somehow, Tommy didn't tip his face up so that he could see it properly. "Thank you," Lovett said when he'd wrestled the smile into submission, "I need all the moral support I can get, seeing as my feckless neighbors abandoned their duty within two episodes."

"There isn't, um." Tommy hoped that he didn't regret this question. "Someone else who might be supporting you more... personally?"

"No." Lovett's face didn't close off, but it was inscrutable as he paused, long enough that Tommy wondered if he had even realized what Tommy was clumsily trying to drive at. Long enough that he lost any confidence in what he was waiting for. Just when Tommy was about to open his mouth to change the subject, Lovett said, “you were right, by the way."

"I always like to hear that." Tommy's heart beat a little louder, a little closer to the surface. He didn't want to assume. "About-"

"About Michael. Content wise." Lovett narrowed his eyes at Tommy, but it was over the top, performative crossness that looked more like forgiveness. "Your delivery could use some work, _a lot of work_ , but he was a total asshole."

"Yeah?" Gloating wasn’t attractive, so Tommy managed to keep most of the glee that this answer gave him inside, but given that inside he was jumping in the air and clicking his heels together under a rainbow lined with singing cherubs, he probably still looked ridiculous.

"I stuck it out through over a month of him, but it was mostly to spite you for being right. I swear in DC he wasn't that bad. Or maybe it was more that I barely saw him talk to other people and the sex was relatively good."

Tommy was so happy that that didn't even sting. Lovett wasn't dating Michael! He didn't even want to be. Tommy tried to take a breath. He didn't want to fuck this up again. This was brilliant, fantastic, stupendous news, but that didn't necessarily mean Lovett wanted to date Tommy. He had to choose his words carefully.

" _Relatively_ good," Lovett insisted, even though Tommy hadn't said anything. "I was young and foolish and desperate for affection." His tone was flippant, but Tommy still ached for that more vulnerable, younger version of Lovett. If only he hadn't been such an idiot himself back then. Maybe Tommy could-

"Also," Lovett blurted out suddenly, "do you want to date me? It's just, you said I didn't have to, but I didn’t even know I could. You never told me that that was on the table."

There were too many feelings cramming up into Tommy's throat. He could hardly speak. Somehow, before Lovett's face could close off, he managed, "You could," and reached out to take Lovett's hand. Lovett looked down at his hand in Tommy's, wove their fingers together.

"Good to know." Lovett took a step closer. "Is this like a 'you could but you may not' thing-" which was the kind of ridiculous grammar point that Lovett would make, not Tommy, and though his voice lilted teasingly there was still under it, that hint of uncertainty, so Tommy pulled him close and kissed him.

***

The soft beeping of Lovett's phone dragged Tommy back into awareness.

"Wh'timsit?" he slurred out. If Lovett's timekeeping measures were waking them up it had to be at least past eleven.

"Seven." Lovett swiped his phone's alarm off and flopped back onto the bed. Not seeing that this information had any bearing on a Saturday morning, Tommy sat up enough to turn his pillow over to the cool side and bedded back down, closing his eyes with a contented sigh. Lovett's bed was a bit on the small side, but it was warm and comfortable and had Lovett in it, and he was pretty sure he could get another couple of hours in.

But not if Lovett kept poking him.

"What?" Tommy grumbled. "The sex will be better if you give me another hour or two of sleep."

"You should probably leave if you don't want Jon and Emily to know you're here." The mattress shifted ominously.

Tommy blinked his eyes open more fully, just in time to grab his corner of the duvet before Lovett could pull it off him. He held it fast. "Why don't I want Jon and Emily to know I'm here?"

" _I_ don't know.” Lovett gave up on tugging the duvet out from Tommy's grip and sat back, crossing his arms over his chest. "You tell me."

"What are you talking about? Why would I know?” Somehow, Tommy seemed to have started an argument in his sleep. "I didn't request this wake-up call."

"So you're telling me you're fine with them finding out you spent the night at my place, with its one usable bed, without even telling them you were coming?"

"Yes."

"They're not stupid you know. Eventually they'll figure out we're seeing each other. Or, Emily will." Abruptly, Tommy's genuine confusion over what the hell Lovett was on about bloomed into understanding. His ire towards Michael, which had subsided somewhat into a smug sense of superiority, surged once again. That that dumbfuck might have addled Lovett's default relationship setting into secrecy and pre-dawn escapes from bed was a profound injustice on a global scale.

Luckily, he'd stumbled into probably one of the few approaches to reassurance that wouldn't send Lovett's hackles rising: a facade of complete obliviousness to any areas of vulnerability that Lovett might have unintentionally revealed that let them both pretend said reassurance was coincidental. It was well worth letting go of any half-formed fantasies of putting off explanations for at least a weekend so that they could spend a few days in their bubble.

"Yeah, we should probably tell them first." Tommy kept his voice light. Lovett still looked floored.

"What!"

"Like, at lunch or something. Later." Pointedly, Tommy snuggled back into the bed, keeping a tight grip on the duvet.

"What about, you know," Lovett gesticulated in a manner that did not help clarify what he was talking about, "the repercussions?"

"If there's an international incident over it, we'll cope. Now come back to bed." Tentatively, Lovett laid back down, but he didn't relax, body stiff next Tommy. He was thinking very loudly. Tommy shut his eyes to give Lovett a bit of privacy for his thinking and affected an unconcerned sleep. He could wait Lovett out.

"Tommy," Lovett whispered an indeterminate amount of time later. The bed really was very comfortable and it really was very early, so it took a decidedly more strident follow up of, "Tommy!" to fully get his attention.

"What?" Tommy opened his eyes to find Lovett close, both of them on their sides facing each other.

"Are you sure you're not going to regret this?" Lovett's eyes were big and wary and boring directly into all Tommy's most tender places.

"Yes." Tommy had rarely been more certain of anything. He scooted forward a few inches so he could kiss Lovett smug again. "No more than I already do, monster." Lovett smiled, a wide, soft smile Tommy had never seen before, and the few inches between them were too many. Over Lovett's token complaints, undercut in real time by what could be termed giggles, Tommy manhandled Lovett over and into little spoon position, thoroughly pinned by Tommy's arms. Although Lovett was wriggling deeper in, so pinned was maybe not the right word. "I want to tell everyone," Tommy added with an accompanying squeeze, "so shut up and go to sleep."

"Everyone? Like, your friends and your exes and your parents? Even Dan?"

"You can send a group text to everyone I know if we can go back to sleep."

"Deal."

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/persuna), tagging at length.


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